Abstract
There is tension between standardization and individualization in education today. Instructional fidelity to a challenging grade-level curriculum is the expectation of current pedagogy. Federal U.S. initiatives mandate assessing the academic growth of all students with common assessments aligned with challenging content standards. The growing number of students who vary as learners in today's classrooms holds implication for instruction and assessment. Personalizing learning targets promotes an equitable measure of student growth. Appropriate instructional goals develop grade-level curricular skills that are selected based on student performance data and are personalized with individualized baselines and proficiency targets. Technology facilitates data-driven instruction through the efficient development and progress monitoring of personalized learning goals. In this chapter, a technology-based model for personalizing standards-based learning targets, developing SMART goals, and monitoring progress is presented.
TopIntroduction
The United States of America’s stagnant educational achievement has motivated focus on the academic growth of students (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2019; Secretary DeVos at 2019 NAEP Release, 2019). A current framework for educational reform mandates the assessment of student proficiency and academic growth on challenging standards-aligned assessments and identification of teacher effectiveness for the purpose of closing educational achievement gaps (Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015). To prepare students for testing, the grade-level curriculum (i.e., what teachers teach) must align with the challenging content standards of assessment. Progression within a curriculum of standardized skills is seen as a reliable pathway to post-secondary achievement.
Content standards have become more standardized at a time of growing student diversity. Personalizing instruction to individualized learning profiles meets a variety of academic needs and supports the academic growth of students. A discussion centered on how to equitably measure growth for all students is set against a backdrop of flat American educational achievement, No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) accountability, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) mandates, and the emphasis on challenging content standards, academic growth, and effective teachers from Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015). The introduction continues with a view of diversity as it connects to ethnicity, disability, and poverty in American classrooms. A background centered on the importance of alignment between instructional and assessment standards, curriculum-based measurement, and sub-content areas follows the introduction. The focus of the chapter is personalizing learning targets. Standards-based Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs) and SMART goals are discussed, and a model for developing personalized, technology-based learning targets is presented. The chapter ends with issues, solutions, research directions, and a conclusion.
Persistent and Widespread Stagnant Academic Growth
Lack of academic growth holds consequences for individual learners and affects the equality of post-secondary outcomes. The United States of America was once first in college completion but has fallen behind 10 other countries (United States Department of Education [U.S. Department of Education], 2010a). One fourth of young Americans do not complete high school, three fourths do not qualify for military service, and 90 million Americans read at a basic or below-basic level (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). In 2013, 29 out of 100 kindergarteners in low-income schools were expected to graduate from college (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). According to former U.S. President Obama, the American promise of equality of opportunity cannot be kept “if we fail to provide a world-class education to every child” (U. S. Department of Education, 2010a, p.1). When students fail to progress academically, education fails to deliver the promise and hope of genuine opportunity to young Americans (Tyack, 1991; U.S. Department of Education, 2013).
Persistent lack of improvement characterizes American educational achievement and affects global competitiveness (OECD, 2019; Secretary DeVos at 2019 NAEP Release, 2019; U.S. Department of Education, 2013). Former U.S. Secretary of Education Duncan expressed concern over the reality of American education. In 2013, fewer than 10 percent of students in thousands of U.S. schools were performing on grade-level in reading and math (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). American students scored below an international average in math and below cohorts from high achieving nations in math and reading in 2018 (OECD, 2019). Current U.S. Secretary of Education DeVos observed a growth flatline and further slipping of U.S. students behind their international cohorts. According to DeVos, many low achieving students “are worse off today while our best performing students have plateaued, those near the bottom-are most vulnerable-have fallen even further behind” (Secretary DeVos at 2019 NAEP Release, 2019,:56). The performance of American students on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment of core knowledge and skills, has remained flat in reading, mathematics, and science (OECD, 2019). According to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (n.d.), a lack of knowledge in American workers affects the global position of the U.S. in a worldwide economy. Multi-billion-dollar federal initiatives have targeted the academic growth of American students.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Baseline: Baselines are needed to determine progress. A baseline is a numeric representation (e.g., 80%, 20 minutes, 5 trials, 6/20). The baseline is the current performance score of an instructional goal.
Sub-Content Areas: Broad content areas, such as reading and math, are the same grade to grade, but constructs within content areas change (e.g., Phoneme Segmenting in reading at a kindergarten level and Word Reading Fluency in reading at a 2 nd grade level). Personalized goals are written for sub-content areas or skills within sub-content areas, rather than for broad content areas.
Technology-Based CBM: Technology-based CBM instruments are formative assessment tools in a computerized or on-line environment. Technology-based CBM promotes the development of personalized learning goals by efficiently (a) assessing students on CBM, (b) gathering individualized baselines, (c) progress monitoring, and (d) banking scores in cloud storage.
Curriculum-Based Measurement: Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is frequent, ongoing formative assessment of the standardized content skills in a student’s curriculum. Progress monitoring is another term for CBM. Student performance on skills-aligned objectives is frequently observed over time with the same instruments used in gathering baselines to determine progress and inform data-driven instruction.
Projected Growth Targets: A growth target is a level of proficiency for a specific learning goal. The appropriate increase to project from a baseline for an individual student and skill depends on the baseline, grade level performance considerations, and perceived student growth rate.
Personalized Learning Goals: Personalized learning goals take student need and performance level into account. Instructional goals are personalized for students by (a) identifying a skill of CBM where growth is needed, (b) establishing a baseline on the skill, and (c) projecting growth based on informed considerations of perceived student growth rate and other factors.
Curriculum Standards: The standards of a curriculum represent established learning constructs by grade-level and content area, such as reading, math, and science. Formatting a citation to a standard guide is an example of an eighth-grade writing curriculum standard. Alignment among a student’s curriculum standards, the standards of assessment, and classroom instruction is important for measuring academic growth.